


Another Boy, Another Planet

by oonaseckar



Category: Doctor Who, X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: 13th Doctor - Freeform, 14th Doctor, Amore - Freeform, Anne-Marie - Freeform, Anne-Marie is River, Chewy, Chiwetel Ejiofor - Freeform, F/M, M/M, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Mpreg, Pining, Sex Pollen, Sex in a TARDIS, TARDIS - Freeform, Thirteenth Doctor Era, Weddings, amore planet of sex, fourteenth doctor - freeform, hints of mpreg, river song - Freeform, sex pollenish, thirteenth doctor - Freeform, wedding ceremony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 09:23:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2646752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor (James) and his bewitching Companion (Michael) think they're going to have a day-trip to CherryBomb, planet of ice-cream sodas and performance cars.  Except James crash-lands on Amore, Planet of Sex, instead.</p>
<p>HOW COULD THIS POSSIBLY GO WRONG?</p>
<p>WHAT'S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN?</p>
<p>For amai_kaminari's prompt as per:  </p>
<p>    James/Michael</p>
<p>    Inspired by "Doctor Who". One is The Doctor. The other is his Companion.</p>
<p>    Any rating is fine. No non-con between the leads, please. Anything consensual is fair game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Boy, Another Planet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amai_kaminari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amai_kaminari/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [amai_kaminari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amai_kaminari/pseuds/amai_kaminari) in the [mcfassy_autumn_extravaganza_2014](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/mcfassy_autumn_extravaganza_2014) collection. 



> Considering the sex-pollenish nature of the premise, there is NO NON-CON OR DUB-CON involved, as per the prompt.
> 
> Title mangled and borrowed from The Only Ones' 'Another Girl, Another Planet'.
> 
> River Song is quasi-Timelord material and can regenerate, right? So I'm thinking she's basically Anne-Marie, here, who would look very well as a space-pirate.
> 
> Congreve reference whipped from Mary Stewart, she wasn't doing nothing with it. Also Whitman.
> 
> Muvverfucker, the fic that would not end. Finally done.

'When the moon hits your-a eye, like a big piece o' pie, that's – _amore_....”

The Doctor was singing again. And, Michael thought from the other side of the controls panel, this was something that was rarely good. He could carry a tune, that wasn't the problem. It was his song choice that was the issue. Three weeks, now, three weeks of hurtling through time and space, getting buddy with aliens and busting up intergalactic mafioso protection rackets. And all of them, the Doctor had spent intermittently, tunefully, whistley-ly working his way through the Rat Pack songbook.

Not that Michael wasn't capable of appreciating the songsmithery and suave style and _brio_ of Sammy, Dean, Frank and the gang. But at this point he would have appreciated a bit of Pearl Jam. Or Lorde. Or One frigging Direction, just for the sake of a change. Harry Styles warbling the _Go Compare_ opera singer jingle would have been an improvement.

James wouldn't hear of it, though.

Oh, oops. Not _James_ , of course, Michael thought, only a trifle mutinously. The _Doctor_. Thirteen, if you were counting. Unlucky for _some_.

Who was opening up the Tardis door, now, for a peek outside, at the latest destination on their trouble-shooting road-trip-cum-cruise through all of time and space. A little cautiously, because a new planet was always a bit of a gamble, even if the Doctor was quite sure – one hundred percent sure – fairly sure, even, where he'd steered and landed them.

“Ta-da!” But it was all right, apparently – because after a first cautious peek, barely getting his nose out the door, the diminutive Galleyfreyan then swung it wide, with a beaming grin that sat well upon rampaging freckles. Michael wondered, sometimes, if freckles were a Galleyfreyan thing, or a Thirteen thing. And what the Doc's own previous incarnations would have made of his Ted Baker polo shirt, sandy-twill jeans and caterpillars get-up. Bit informal, next to bow-ties and lovingly auntie-knitted scarves, surely?

Still, he was wittering on as usual. Better pay attention. They'd had a rip in the fabric of space-time last time he'd let his mind wander. Nasty. “Cherrybomb! Planet of delicious vegan ice-cream sodas and free automotive upgrades! Last time I was here they tried to overhaul the Tardis, give it a bit of welly and some ridiculous skirting bodywork! Free, of course, and very kind of 'em, but the old girl wasn't having it. She doesn't look well in skirts anyhow, and the big monster exhaust they tried to put on, ridiculous. Jeremy Clarkson, how he would have larfed. Last time he popped in he stripped her down and overhauled the innards. Said it was like de-modding a golf-cart. Look, you can tell it's Cherrybomb, the curious violet shade of the sky is very characteristic – “

“OH PRAISE THE LORD AMORE FOR HE HAS COME DOWN TO US ONCE MORE! ONCE MORE IN HIS LITTLE BLUE BOX FOR US TO WORSHIP AND ADORE! AND HE WILL CHOOSE MANY PARTNERS TO INSEMINATE WITH THE TOOL OF TIMELORDS! FECUNDITY WILL COME TO THE PLANET AMORE NOW THE LORD HAS – “

_Bosh_. That was the door of the Tardis slammed shut on a spontaneous high-pitched chorus, sounding something like a host of angels, seraphim on helium. Backed up by the sudden eruption of a truly impressive sound-system, something pinched from Glasto maybe, bursting into _My First, My Last, My Everything_. And that was the Doctor, slammed with his back up against it, suddenly pale and visibly sweating. Michael thought it seemed as if it might be urgent. He ceased and desisted from playing flick golf on the touch-screen of Tardy's controls. Well, after making a stupendously unstoppable move that would have her in the rough. *cough*

“Little problem, is there?” he enquired, casually sauntering over and up to the charming double-ventricled space-alien who had dubbed him 'Companion' for the last six months. That, ever since he wandered in during a spectacularly slaughtering night's clubbing in London, under the altered-state misapprehension that it was one of those free-standing automated public conveniences. Well, there had to be some credible explanation.

It had been a fantastic change from being a film-star, anyhow. Change of scene, all that.

The Doctor was definitely hyperventilating a little bit. Michael reached out to pat his hand, soothingly, and it got gripped like a python getting friendly with an egg.

“That planet. It's not Cherrybomb,” the Doctor said.

Michael raised an eyebrow, pleased at the opportunity. Sardonic eyebrow raises were his _specialty_. “No?” he asked.

Baby blues were squeezed shut a moment, and the Doctor genuinely looked terrified. Which almost never happened. Even on the creepy asteroid with the man-eating planet-wide moss-clone-monster that looked like cloned Katie Prices with three boobs, he'd still kept a firm hold of the old _sang froid._ But now?

The Doc breathed slower, more carefully. “No,” he said. “It's _Amore_.”

Well. “What a coincidence,” Michael said, genial. “And just as you were opening the door you were singing – “

“Shut up,” said the Doc, looking miserable. “This is no time for wittering on about serendipity and coincidence and statistics. We're on Amore! Amore, for Christ's sake!' He put his hands to his face, and began to stumble forward into the welcoming innards of the Tardis, ready to fall upon the Lay-Z-Boy that Michael had insisted on having installed in the control-room, within forty-eight hours of establishing his tenancy in the old flea-pit.

“Planet of Love?” Michael guessed.

“If only,” the Doctor moaned, face down on plush black leather, arse slightly elevated in a reasonably flattering way that Michael was not at all taking account of. “Planet of _Sex_. Twenty-four hour sex. Vanilla sex. Kinky sex, bored sex, sex with toys, sex sex sex. Non-stop sex. Sex marathons with a side order of nipple clamps, dildos, sucking, rimming, felching, conga-train lap-dances, French maid outfits, circle jerks and inviting the vicar for a quickie in the pulpit. Tea breaks optional. Bourbons and custard creams _gratis._ With a permanent Barry White soundtrack, as you may have noticed, the Walrus of Love grumping and humping in the background. The locals – sex-mad Smurfs, if you take a look - are immune, for some reason, but any visitors to the place are almost instantly affected. I don't know if it's the atmosphere, the sun's rays, some plant or mammalian virus, but it's blooming lethal and one hundred percent contagious. I think I got back in here quick enough – if you're lucky – and we'd better just rev up the old girl and twenty-three-skidoo out of here before...”

The Doctor paused. Because he wasn't getting a response, interjection, interruption or being rudely talked over by his superhumanly annoying, relatively-recent Companion. At all. And that was just not _characteristic_.

Plus there was a pleasant breeze blowing over his arse and calves, and where was that coming from if he'd shut the bloody Tardis door? He jerked his head up, blue eyes caesium-flame hot.

Michael had opened the door to have a good look out. Of course he had. Of _course_ he bloody had.

He was worse than frigging Rose.

The locals had fallen silent. Maybe they weren't sure what to make of the handsome stranger in the blue box doorway, who was not the Doctor they had worshipped as their new incumbent God of Amore on the last – disastrous – visit.

Maybe it was a false alarm. Maybe they only worshipped Timelords. Maybe whatever was in the water had been a brief blip at the local sewage works, a water treatment issue that had been sorted out since that date –

“OH HAIL PRETTY STRANGER FROM THE BLUE BOX, WHAT LOVELY EYES, LET US BOW DOWN AND ADORE THE DOCTOR'S CONCUBINE! FOR THE DOCTOR SHALL IMPREGNATE HIM MOST EFFICIENTLY AND THERE SHALL BE MANY GOD-LIKE BABIES FOR US TO ADORE! WE SHALL GET JOLLY NICE BABY MONKEY-HATS OFF OF ETSY FOR THE CHRISTENINGS AND THERE SHALL BE A MILLION GOD-PARENTS ALL OVER AMORE! WE HAVE KAMA SUTRA MANUALS ON HAND IF SUGGESTIONS ARE REQUIRED AND ANN SUMMERS HAS FREE VOUCHERS FOR ALL VISITORS TO THE PLANET AS WELL AS – “

_Bish_. That was the Tardis door getting slammed shut on the hive-mind chorus from every little blue native on the planet, all assembled in an eagerly bouncing and pop-eyed throng, intent upon Michael now. (And on Marvin Gaye's _Sexual Healing,_ now. Clichéd, man, clichéd.) But Thirteen could barely bear to look up. This was _bad news._ It hardly seemed worth it, now, right now, that he'd battled Daleks and Cybermen and little munchkins in Santa's elf outfits with teeth like needles – fucking piss-off toxic bastard planet _that_ had been, luring them in expecting fun and gifts and jolly japes and then – anyway.

Now Michael – the blasted idiot – the blasted phenomenally aesthetically blessed mortal divinity with a physique passed down from Apollo and – well – never mind that – now, he'd gone and got himself smickled.

Bitten by the love-bug. Dosed up with natural turbo-charged aphrodisiacs and egged on by a population of eager xenophiliac voyeurs. Artifically horny as fuck and locked – trapped – inside the Tardis.

With the Doctor. And the Doctor – James – took a moment to appreciate the glorious irony of that fact. And lifted his head up, to bang it down again on split leather and oozing stuffing. (What the fuck had Michael been doing on this barcalounger? Apart from the three-bosomed bottle-green harlots he brought back from the planet with Pernod in the tap-water – or a little water in the tap-Pernod – after James was unwise enough to let the tomcat out on the razzle for a night, to celebrate their surviving the needle-teeth little geezers. Yeah, that'd probably done it. What with the tentacle-spikes. Sooner Michael than _him_. And he hadn't been jealous. Not at all. Locking himself in the underwater lab on the sixth storey with a wet-suit and a hermetically-sealed pina colada had been purely a preventative measure. Preventative against reactive melancholia and _crimes passionel_ , that is.)

And _bosh_ to all that, because there were steps heading his way. Languid, elegant, cat-like steps, magnetically headed in the Doctor's direction like he was true north and... _There stands my north, and thither my needle points_ , the Doctor thought frantically, and almost sobbed with mirth at Congreve's little dirty joke in poesy. Dirty old fucker, always with the smut, he'd been a hounded man on a pub crawl, every whore in town dunning him for his tab. Really must go back a few centuries and visit him sometime, the Doctor thought...

A hand landed on his shoulder. Okay, that was a direct lie, because the Doctor was editing this version of reality for himself in an attempt to make it more digestible and amenable to quite insufficient coping practices. A hand landed on his arse, to be strictly accurate. And squeezed.

Fuck, and this is how it begins, he thought. “I really think you ought to go have a cold shower and a lie-down, Michael,” he said, voice muffled through torn leather and the fluffy throw that was very comfortable right then, along with the copy of _Horton Hears A Who!_ that he'd been reading aloud to Michael until they arrived on Amore with a bump and a bang. “You're not feeling yourself at the moment, but if you go and quarantine yourself in the jungle gym section of the multiple-ecosystem Tardal quadrant, you'll have plenty to keep you occupied until it wears off, and we can avoid any incidents that we'll both find completely and regrettably unforgettable. Be a good lad and fuck off, for now.”

But what happened? Did anyone present follow the good Doctor's good advice, based on aeons of experience and a master's in transactional analysis, from when he was stuck in 1960s Britain with Billie Piper? (Universal free tertiary education, you gotta hand it to little old Britain, they really ran with the egalitarian thing for a while back there. Back before the serf mentality kicked back in again, and they all started tugging their forelocks once more at inbred Greco-German banjo-playing porch-dwellers with a permanent choke-hold on the celeb-mag top spots.)

No. Instead of going off to lock himself in the dungeons – Michael climbed over the Doctor and straddled him. (Yeah, the Tardis had dungeons, anyone want to make something of it? You never know. That sixth regeneration was pretty freaky, the little perv.)

Which was a terrible, terrible idea. Terrible. _Terrible._

Oh God, so terrible and nice. And Michael slammed his hands down, one by the Doctor's face where it was getting red and sweaty on couch-leather, one on the back of the chair, and it was a slam of palms on leather that might as well have said _how about it, matey?_

“Such a bad idea,” he said weakly.

“Hmm? What is?” Michael said – purred – up much closer to his ear than the Doctor was expecting. Although that was only to be expected, really. “What's this about feeling myself? I was planning to delegate that job to you, actually.”

The Doctor went utterly, utterly, utterly, quite still. Except for a little wriggle around the hips and arse. And he lifted his head up, twisted around to get a look at Michael. Who was looking lush and flushed and … well, like always, except maybe with a dose of Amore's natural Viagra. “I can't believe you went there,” he said, disappointed.

“Shut up.”

“I _honestly_ can't believe you went there. Weak. No, I should have known, no cheap shot is cheap enough for you not to – ”

And there he stopped, the flow of abusive chatter quite dried up by Michael's mouth on the back of his neck, and hand firmly trying to wriggle under his belly for undoubtedly nefarious purposes.

“I've been so good,” he muttered to himself, rebellious and complaining. “I've been _so good._ All this time, hands to myself, no handling the goods, no taking advantage of innocent unworldly Companions, following Tardy's _Companion Procedures Manual, subsection c)ii) Sexual Harassment of Companions: Don't Do It!_ instructions to the letter, I've kept a lid on it like it was _glued on._ And now _this._ ”

“You know about the two hearts thing?” Michael asked. Michael _clearly wasn't listening._ He was also built along the lines of the octopus-style species they'd met on bizarro-Disneyworld, or at least seemed to be right now. The Doctor was discreetly trying to wriggle out from under – however reluctantly – and Michael was agreeably, unflappably _not co-operating._ And now his hand skittered up from the Doctor's belly – where it had been nice, very nice, was very much missed – and up to his chest, skittering over thin cotton and two-fingeredly snapping a button open to slip inside and rest right there, right where a human heart would lie. “Does it apply to dicks too?”

And that was the only trigger that the Doctor needed, to switch his struggles up from half-hearted, to bucking bronco, and stagger up to a standing position, red-faced and tottering and re-buttoning buttons that should _never have been unbuttoned in the first place_.

“Not – it doesn't – that's highly inappropriate!” he spluttered, maintaining both confidentiality and dignity with some effort. “Look, Michael, before you go any further – or do anything that you're only going to regret later – then there's something you need to know.” And that warning was sorely needed, and possibly not quick enough, or not delivered with sufficient stern Scots dignity. Because it didn't remotely stop Michael from being up and on him in an instant.

So that his next words were delivered – and at some loss to their sententious sonic quality and head-nodding import – with the Doctor going into reverse gear, backing towards the external wall of the Tardis, with a hungry-eyed Michael stalking him cat-like and unrelenting, burning eyes focused in tightly on his face, and ears clearly blocked to all the good sense that the Doctor was reluctantly issuing forth. “Look, like I say, this is Amore. You've got to take it into _account_. I know you've got a brain in there somewhere, still – I know from when it happened to me, you're still a rational being, you've just got – er – certain drives, and – uh – urges, revved up to, Christ, about a thousand multiplications of their normal urgency. And considering the way you normally put it about even when your libido isn't artificially enhanced, God knows what effect that's going to have.”

Then the Doctor's back hit the wall, Michael's front hit the Doctor, and it was perfectly evident just what effect the magical ether and polleniness of Amore was having on him.

“Put it away!” the Doctor squawked, white-knuckled hands clutching for purchase, as he was plastered up as the filling in a sandwich between his latest bewitching Companion and Tardy's moist, giving walls. “Before I get my sonic screwdriver out!”

“I haven't got anything out to put away. Yet,” Michael pointed out, but he was a little bit muffled, there, possibly. What with his face being clamped up _open-mouthed_ against the Doctor's neck – tickly! - and the rest of his _regions_ being similarly busy grinding up against corresponding bits of the Doctor's current incarnation. Just because he was squirmy and squirrelly enough at the mo that he probably needed a bit of soothing calming down, probably. “Is that a sonic screwdriver in your pocket or – ”

“No! Do not go there! I forbid you to go there!” the Doctor cried, in a voice that was much like the thunder that rent the skies of Gallifrey in his boyhood, except for the quavery bit in the middle. “And you don't need to get it out, not for me to be perfectly _well aware of it_ , in your current condition. Which is the fault of Amore, and the reason why we need to put the kettle on and have a good old chinwag about – ”

“Oopsadaisy,” Michael said calmly. “You comfy there?”

“Comfy,” the Doctor expostulated. “ _Comfy!_ ” He did it from the spot he'd just been swung up into, fireman's lift style over Michael's shoulder, sonic screwdriver flying free as he waved it about, like he was sorely tempted to make use of it, and not as a sex aid either.

“Good, then we'll begin,” Michael said easily. “The replica of Marie Antoinette's bedchamber's on the third bordello mezzanine, right? Good place to begin.”

There was only Tardy to hear a thing, as Michael strode off much like a Viking warrior having kidnapped a pretty Saxon maid for his bed, illicit booty over his shoulder and vaguely protesting, arms a-waggling. A distant file back-up, in fact, beeped and snickered, records being updated. What she might have been noting for future Companions to snicker over, was that, protest as he might, the Doctor had screwdriver in hand and could have done something about this outrage and perfidious abduction _any time he liked_.

Deep in the bowels of the Tardis's direct tap-root into all of time and space, a pretty feminine voice flounced and muttered to itself. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” perhaps it said.

xxx

The chuntering absolutely did not stop, carried on without pause or surcease, right up until the point that Michael flung the Doctor down on a four-poster bed and climbed over him with a grin climbing all over his own face. Most of it to the effect that he was going to _regret it later,_ yes siree bob, and the Doctor had far too much in the way of scruples to be messing around with someone roofied off his head with the tingling air... water... little ballsac-hopping termites, who knew... of Amore.

And Michael disregarded the lot of it until they were on the bed, then grinned down at the Doctor, flushed and protesting and pawing slightly at Michael's shirt-buttons, except when he kept remembering not to do that. “We have to stop,” the Doctor said sternly, breathlessness robbing some of the earnest gravitas from his tone. “We ought to stop.”

“I'm not doing anything,” Michael pointed out sweetly. “You're the one whose hands are in my pants.”

It was true, and more worrying that the Doctor couldn't actually remember that happening. Especially worrying since he was pretty sure he hadn't been affected by Amore, since he could only too vividly remember the fever and uncontrolled bliss of that experience, and this was qualitatively different.

This was all _him_ , but that was nothing fresh, not around Michael.

“Sorry,” he said. Michael raised an eyebrow, as if there was still something missing from the apology, and then it occurred to the Doctor. He retrieved his hands from where they'd strayed.

“Hey,” Michael said – up closer, oh, uncomfortably close, lowering himself down so there was no escape - “Did I say I was complaining? If I was complaining, it was only that you weren't actually putting 'em to use. Put 'em back, put 'em back,” he urged, and if that wasn't a chunk taken out of the Doctor's ear it was certainly a very vigorous little nip.

The Doctor was going to have two heart attacks. At the same time.

Being ground down into the huge soft mattress of an antique four-poster by a wriggling love-fevered Michael was not a good thing. Even if he was having a little trouble convincing his brain of that. His brain. Other parts. Never mind.

“Look,” he said, trying to lever himself up onto his elbows, “this is a bad idea, we need to put a stop to it. You're not in your right mind, you've been given the Amore whammy and you're doing things you would never do if you weren't artificially horny and ready to shag anything that doesn't batter you off with a rolling pin.”

“Bloody rude,” Michael breathed into his cheek, pulling his forearms flat so he landed heavily down on the mattress again, giving his hot-blushing cheek a quick lick while he was there, and sliding one hand between the Doctor's thighs and letting it rise, steadily. And nudge, a bit, at tender spots. “And also untrue. How you do witter on, but you never ask my opinion, or for my input. Are you like this with all the Companions? No wonder they all piss off to other universes, or get their minds wiped in preference to dealing with it. Not to mention all the lingering about giving it the old bedroom eyes – and then, 'Goodnight, Michael!' and fucking off to bed. By yourself. By _yourself_. Screwdriver-teasing little – ”

“Oi, oi!” the Doctor was forced to protest, at that. “I've been trying to _protect_ you! Following the Code of Conduct in Relation to Companions, as laid down by Timelords immemorial in the Gallifreyan High Council, and especially on this bloody planet! You're not in your right mind, Michael, you're under the influence, and what kind of a Doctor would I be if I took advantage of that fact? On Earth in an equivalent position, I'd be struck off for the least little... ah...”

“Grope?” Michael enquired. But his words weren't all he used to put the question, because evidently this was a 'point and say' type of a demonstration.

The Doctor yipped, Michael nipped some more, and held the pint-sized Galleyfreyan down more firmly, speaking with lips right up to nose so that they brushed over some very cute little time-travellin' freckles. “Doctor. _James,_ ” he added firmly, well aware of the kibosh the Doc had previously put on the privileged use of his secret, secret, terribly terribly top-secret god almighty _name._ “Do I _seem_ to you as if I'm not in my right mind?”

It was a fair enough question, and enough for the Doctor to screw up his pretty face, considering it. “Well,” he said doubtfully. “More than usual? You've been exposed – and visitors to Amore have a hundred percent rate of succumbing. It stands to reason – and you've never, er... shown any sign of being interested in my, ah. Um.”

“Ass?” Michael suggested. “Bod? Nether regions? Cute li'l hairy legs? You know, considering the accent you popped out of the shell with this time, I can't understand why you haven't gone with the kilt option, I'm willing to bet it's very flattering...” But along with the digression, his hands were tracing and re-tracing the parts of the Doctor's anatomy he was introducing to the discussion, making it extra difficult for the Doctor to concentrate on his occupancy of the moral high ground. Instead he flung his head back on a Dalek-embroidered pillow-case and whimpered, while Michael attacked his shirt buttons with his teeth and terrified them into abandoning their stitches.

“ _You_ didn't show any interest,” he continued, spitting out a button so it pinged with impressively accurate aim against one post of the four-poster. “In fact, you ran for the hills, or starting tinkering with Tardy, any time I got too near or started hinting. If I'd known you were just following a blasted code of conduct I'd have done this sooner. I was just looking for a decent excuse, that's all. And what do you imagine landing on a planet like Amore was? Best excuse in the world.”

“But your judgement is compromised!” the Doctor squeaked. (You had to make allowances for him. Not only was he getting his entire set of assumptions set _bouleversé_ and rummaged about with in the back of his mind . But also everything about this past six months of keeping his teeth gritted, his hands to himself and his eyes averted when Michael decided – yet again – to wander out of the showers on the second dimensional gateway of the carnivora section of Tardy, and prod at the workings of the coffee filter-cum-4D printer, and enter sassy little observations with stick-man manikin drawings and rude limericks in the Doctor's Companion's Log. All still wearing a towel, and not much of one at that. Dripping wet.

No, not only that. But also, Michael sliding hands firmly inside the waistband of his pants, down over his hips. A waistband that had no ruddy give at all, tightening the pressure on his abdomen so that it was a choice between popping the button and zip, or cutting off circulation to both his cardiac systems, quick sharp.

Even as he was popping the button, he was still protesting, in a little moan that didn't help with the comprehensibility of his dutiful explanation and unenthusiastic discouragement and and attempt to take the temperature down a notch or two, not at all. “Just because you don't think you've been affected, that doesn't mean you necessarily _haven't_ ,” he gabbled, while Michael gently took a hold of his hands, firmly pressed him by the wrists down into soft welcoming pillows, and took over with his zipper. “I got out of the contaminated environment in under a second, but you... you just lingered out there! While they were, uh, worshipping you... It's empirically tested and proven that a first-time planet visitor, of any species, exposed to the influence of Amore, inevitably and inexorably goes down - er - with the condition. Inexorably!” That last, choked out with an extra zing and rumble of Scottish burr, was a humdinger.

And Michael was nodding slowly, as slowly and excruciatingly as he was lowering James' zipper, which was pretty damn excruciating. “Iiiis that right,” he said, consideringly. “Interesting. So how about the second time?”

James' eyes were squeezed shut – because what you can't see you can't control, and isn't really happening in the first place, right? - and at this point he was holding on to the bedposts, up a little from where Michael had firmly put his wrists over his head and away from the scene of the action, leaving the field clear for Michael's tender and surgically-precise ministrations. But he struggled for an answer, just the same. “The second time?” he echoed, stuttering a little and with his hand whipping, automatically, down to push Michael's head away from where it was heading, because that was a place where tongue was very inadvisable and wasn't going to lead anywhere good. Yeah, it might feel good.

But that was a _very very very bad place._ Bad _touch._ With all kinds of knotty convoluted consent issues, if he let Michael do anything... anything... where were they again?

“Second time,” Michael agreed, now just sprawled over the Doctor's outrageous state of semi-dress – that somebody was going to have to rectify in a moment. Just a moment, though, because the Doctor was too occupied right now, apprehensively watching as Michael propped his head on his hands, one elbow each side of the Doc's half-exposed belly – and seemed to be taking some interest in his navel. Which they always did. There was always the regeneration/belly button discussion eventually. He couldn't remember the two-dicks conversation ever cropping up previously, though, Michael had a first where that was concerned.

“Because,” Michael pointed out – and the Doctor had to slap a questing digit from actively exploring said navel, “you've been exposed to the atmosphere, just now. And the locals. And whatnot, depending on how it spreads. And you seem fine, am I right? Second exposure, Doc,” he said. And slapped the Doc's arse, or what of it he could get access to. “You're inoculated. Consent issues obviated, my son. So how about you get your knickers off and – ”

Really, at this point the Doctor was forced to engage in some quite spirited, heated and slappy wrestling and tugging in order to maintain at least seventy percent coverage of flesh, copious amounts of slappage of lean tan hands involved and a bit of regretful, regrettable whining. It was quite a struggle, including to keep his mind on the point at hand. “Yes,” he gasped, finally grabbing a hold of Michael's wrists so they were locked with Michael crab-wise hunched over him, a truly evil grin mauling his pretty features. “I am. It certainly appears so. But you...”

He stopped, at Michael's perky little eyebrow-twitch, his meaningful thumb-jerk at his own chest. “You,” he repeated, comprehension slow. “ _You've_ never been here before. You've never been off _Earth_. You've never... you... When?”

Nothing, nothing had ever looked more smug than Michael's face at that very moment. “Really?” he asked, and flexed his wrists in the Doctor's grip, craned his head down to brush noses with him. “You absolutely sure about that? You never asked for my c.v., remember. And if you'd specifically asked me if I'd ever had a bit of a weekend break on Arcturis, or holidayed in the Cepheid variables, then I'd have told you straight. Never _fibbed_ about it.”

The Doctor's faced expressed nothing but shock, stunned outrage and disbelief. Well, maybe a teeny little bit of lust thrown in to the admixture. It twisted his eyebrows up and wiggled his face becomingly... “When?” he protested. “How would no-one have noticed? If you haven't realised, you're a bloody great _film-star_ back on earth. What, you took three months out to go gallivanting around the universe and then just popped back to film _Inglorious Basterds_ , then? Tarantino all right with that, was he? And, and...” He was stumblingly incoherent at this point. And Michael was a lot too close, up intimate and personal and his breath fluttering at the Doctor's lashes. He'd known, _known_ this particular companion was a bad idea. Should have thrown him out the first night he staggered in from the street on the Ealing tube route and puked in the alien-bioenvelope generator, before passing out on the control desk.

But he'd been so very pretty, lying there spark out and snoring, though. As well as recognisable. Call the Doctor a tedious naff TV buff and sad fan, but nobody could convince him that Hex was anything other than a Shakespearean masterpiece of epic proportions. Unheralded in its decade, prophets without honour and all that!

Oh, how sly, how passing sly and comely was Michael's face, at that. “What?” he asked. “You're telling me you'd have any trouble dropping me back in 2012 if I had an issue with Brian wanting me back to re-do the helmet scene?” He made a show of clearing his throat suggestively. “As you might say.”

And the Doctor felt his face go slack. “Who?” he asked, dumbly. The weight and pressure of Michael's torso over him was definitely doing things to the old grey matter. He wasn't normally reduced to this level of neuron misfiring and brainfog. But still... If it hadn't been _him..._ “Who?”

“Exactly!” Michael's grin was fond, as he pushed a sweaty lock of hair back off the Doctor's forehead and pressed an uninvited kiss to his cheekbone that the Doc was too slack-jawed to protest. Well, it was quite sweet. He did look a bit impatient when he raised his head and saw the Doctor's expression, still uncomprehending and supine beneath him. “ _Who,_ ” he repeated, as one to a special, adorable, slappably dim-witted child. “The Doctor. The other one.”

The silence, at that little bit of intel, _tingled_ a bit. You might almost have thought, from the frigid hauteur of the Doctor's expression – not half such a cuddly little meerkat-marmoset handful, suddenly – that he wasn't thrilled and ecstatic to hear this intriguing bit of news. “Really,” he said. And considering he was flat on his back, flustered and bed-headed without even the benefit of having been bedded – yet – and somewhat at a physical disadvantage with a six-foot Irishman with twenty pounds on him using him as a cuddly toy/lilo... He managed an awful lot of dignified enquiry and implied rebuttal of any further liberties, in that single word. “And which _other one_ is that?”

Michael only looked slightly wary, at that. Mostly amused. He seemed quite up to the risk of a bit of further hair-petting, too, even though the Doctor's expression suggested that he was doing so entirely under his own advisance and at the risk of losing the odd digit to the Doctor's dentiture. “Fourteen, I think he said he was. You know, the one who comes after you. Mind you, I didn't call him that. He was, let's see, how shall I put it – ” Michael scratched his head. “Pally. Chummy. I mean compared to you, the almighty King of keep-your-hands-to-yourself-mister and did-I-ask-you-to-call-me-James-I-think-you'll-find-I-did-not-that-is-a-special-secret-private-name-mateyboy. I didn't call him James, either, mind you. Chewy, he went by. Or goes by. Or _will go by_ , I suppose, if you really want to get technical. Which I generally _don't_ , with the whole time palaver - ” and Michael was getting more Irish by the second - “It makes my head fizz and let's just skate around it as far as we can right now.” He smiled. Nice smile, only twenty percent more toothy than the average person. No reason for the Doctor to give him a slap, though it looked like it was imminent.

“Chewy,” the Doctor said stonily. “I would _never_ refer to myself as Chewy. Not on any planet, in any age or under the guise of any regeneration would I ever, ever call myself _Chewy_ – ”

“I think it might have been a sex thing,” Michael said thoughtfully, scrubbing at his hair and rolling his eyes to the ceiling, as if manipulating his brainpan might help him to assemble his thoughts better. “He usually called himself it in the third person when he had his kinky boots on. And he'd grab his crotch at the same time. I mean, maybe it was a nickname for – ”

“Moving on!” The Doctor clearly wasn't keen to hear any more revelations of that nature. And he grabbed at Michael's hair, to get his attention, bring his wandering gaze back to the Doctor's face. Where it clearly belonged. They gazed at each other a moment, pressed up close, veeery warm, and the Doctor appeared to lose his train of thought for a moment. Then startled, and cleared his throat, and said, “So. This alleged – Doctor. Timelord. _Chewy._ He brought you here? To Amore?”

Michael nodded, a gentle, wistful, reminiscing expression lighting up his face with a pretty nostalgia. “Yup. First time, for both of us, too. Noobs, total. Neophytes. _Virgins_ , you might say, even.” And he leered, a bit.

The Doctor pulled at his hair. Hard. “Really. How's that, then? This... this... _Chewy_ , this charlatan, is clearly some kind of imposter. I've been to Amore before now, how else would I know to avoid it and run like the clappers soon as I realised?”

And Michael shrugged. “Funny, that's what Chewy thought. He reckoned he'd be okay, I'd have a whale of a time, and no harm no foul no funny business between us.” He considered. “He said Thirteen would get jealous otherwise. That's you, right? Got to say I was a bit disappointed. I mean, have you seen him? Er, right, _no_. But it turns out,” he added breezily, “that it's a fresh, new, deflowering on Amore for every Doctoral regeneration! You learn something new every day, right? Humans – most species, for that matter – only get the one full Amore-sex-up experience – but you Gallifreyans, you get the worldwide orgy tour every time you set down there in a new bod. Lucky you!” His grin was amiable. Perhaps a little predatory, with it.

But the Doctor had other matters to concern him. “Jealous,” he repeated. “Jealous?” And his eyes were wibbling all over the place – certainly not looking Michael in the eye, even though it was very difficult to do anything else, considering they were practically cuddling and face to face about two inches apart. “What does that even mean?”

Michael's fingers were being bad again, tracing a line down in between the buttons of the Doctor's manly Ted Baker shirt, proddling in between to get a gentle scratch at skin and hair before taking the next step, the next button down. It was really time for the Doctor to slap his hand, and he thought he'd get right on that. In a minute. “Well,” Michael said – and he looked thoughtful, marshalling his facts, like he was about to embark on a Jackanory story - “Chewy – _Fourteen_ – he said I'd already – or was going to – ah, transgress the companion Code, with you. And that you were a bit _proprietorial_. Apparently you left him all kinds of notes, pre-regeneration, about what exactly you'd come back and do to his bits and his wig collection if he strayed outwith the bounds you'd set him.” Yeah, the kiss to the side of the Doctor's neck. _That_ was bad. He'd have to put a stop to all that nonsense.

Presently.

The Doctor swallowed. “So we've already... done it?”

Michael's head was sunk, past his shoulder, nuzzling in to an armpit with bonobo enthusiasm. “Uh-huh.”

“Or we're going to... do it?”

“Mmm-mmm-mmm.” That was probably an affirmative. The Doctor was going to go with that. Meanwhile his neck was getting chewed on, and that was really terrible, objectively speaking. The kind of reprehensible and illicit activity up with which he should not put, as a guardian of the universe. Realllly terrrrrible. Probably why he was whimpering. One of the two reasons, in any case.

And he groaned. “Oh... God. As if I don't get enough of this sort of thing with River.” The wide and manly shoulders pinning him to the bed shook, and he had a feeling that he wasn't being taken exactly seriously. As well as being groped to within an inch of his life. “I'm not sure I can cope with two of you. Messing me about. Popping up hither and thither, here and yon in time and space.”

That got him a lot closer to cuddled than groped. It was comforting. Very difficult to deny that it was comforting. Even two-hearted Gallifreyan Timelords needed cuddles. “You'll survive,” Michael's muffled, hot-breathy voice assured him, dampening strands and tufts of his hair as Michael half-chewed on it as he talked. “It'll be great. Apparently you get very very attached to me and we explore time and space. Have a few swingers' cruises through various galaxies. Get bladdered on a vintage NASA shuttle that Guy Martin mods up for us and see the second end of the universe. Or the third. He wasn't sure. Have a lot of wild monkey sex. So Fourteen reckoned.”

And that really should have been the cue for the Doctor to snuggle up all confiding and amorous and pliable, and for the two of them to get right on that and make up for a heck of a lot of wasted time. Except that the Doctor wasn't doing that at all, which Michael had to classify as both reprehensible and regrettable. Instead, he was giving Michael a proper moody look outta those baby-blues. Proper moody. Sulky wasn't the word. Watch out with that lower lip, you could rest a plate on it, might have been a few of the words. And to accompany the look, he had a fair old grip on Michael's upper arms. Enough to put bruises on 'em, give it twenty-four hours, which was, let's see, hmm. ah.... Possibly okay. But still not promising as far as indicators of current mood went. What a stroppy little bugger he could be. Fortunate for him he was cute enough to get away with it. And had the screwdriver on hand to zap any hostiles not immediately charmed by a Scots accent, a big smile and pretty blue eyes. And the kilt for special occasions. (Very special, for Michael.)

So he booped their noses together, and got glared at some extra for his pains. “So this Fourteen,” the Doctor said, stonily, rigid – not in the good way – underneath Michael. “You visited Amore together. Deliberately. And you had the – ” he paused, delicately - “full experience. I call that bloody negligent of him. That breaks every other principle and clause in the Companion Code. If I could have words with him, then I'd – well, I'd have more than bloody words. I'd introduce him to the old model sonic screwdriver in delicate regions.” He paused. “So. What was he like, anyway?”

Michael was a llittle over-occupied with some intensive nuzzling, intended to coax the sulks and rigidity right outta any subject and induce it elsewhere, too much to answer for a moment. Then he lifted his head up, brow raised, and opened his mouth to enquire, “Jealous?”

The flip round the head in answer, wasn't really any kind of answer at all. Nor the blush. And Michael hauled himself up a little higher, so that they were more face-to-face, and got close enough that eyelashes were brushing cheekbones and mouths were... Well. Not quite. “Everybody was fully informed of the risks and rewards, going in. It was an informed decision, we knew the risks – although Fourteen didn't really expect the full whammy the way he got it. No Code broken, no consent issues breached. And yeah, it was fun.” He smiled right into the Doctor's eyes, and the Doctor slackened and relaxed, because damn, that was hard to resist. “It was you,” he added. “Some version of you. You might want to remember that. No need to throw a hissy fit.”

“Humph,” the Doc huffed. “Well. After a fashion,” he allowed. “But there are some regenerations I wouldn't really want to associate with. Not just because of their fashion sense, either. And this one upcoming sounds like an arsehole.” There might, maybe, have been something petulant in the flip of his full lip as he very precisely articulated himself. The extra burrrrrr of his accent was a tell that Michael had learned, over a few months, to read with extreme accuracy.

He was reading all kinds of annoyed, horny and jealous in this particular variant. So score there, quite satisfactory. Seemed like they'd moved on a stage, anyway – at least the dual-hearted double-brained trebly annoying little bugger wasn't wriggling around like he wanted to get away, or wanted to seem like he wanted to get out from under. He got a hold of those broad and manly wrists – lumberjack hands, he'd learnt _not_ to say after realising the Doctor was sensitive on the issue, and now generally referred to them as the refined paws of a Victorian gentleman – and held him down as if he needed it. No, not a peep, not a wriggle, not a twitch of protest.

Just blue - _alien_ blue, that had to be it, it was the only explanation – eyes, staring into greenish ones, at a very uncomfortable/comfortable lack of distance. “Nothing wrong with Chewy's fashion sense,” Michael said vaguely, not really listening all that closely himself to even monitor what he was saying. Just chuntering and looking and feeling. Feeling things, in the bad-touch and the fluffy-heartache sense. “You'd love his boots. Well, maybe not,” he added, with a squint down at the Doctor's frankly laddy keks and caterpillars, rucking up vintage French linen. “Lola might have things to say about your style quotient, if it comes to that. She'd have things to say about those boots.”

“Lola?” the Doctor queried. He seemed a little bit breathless, as Michael leaned in closer, and pressed down harder, pressing the advantage of the battle won.

Michael only smirked at him. “I'm not sure you're ready to hear about Lola, not yet. Maybe later. When you've earned it.” He waggled his eyebrows, and only because he knew it'd drive the Doc crazy – just like other things – he whispered, “ _Secrets._

“Oh God,” the Doctor whined, wriggling a little if not struggling. “I knew it! You _are_ another one! 'Really, this is ridiculous. It's diabolical. I already _have_ a wife I keep bumping into in different chronological dive bars. The idea of any more where River came from, is bloody ridiculous! Even for a Timelord!”

Perhaps the Doctor wasn't precisely expecting Michael's skittish response to that. The rearing up, the flush on his cheeks, the eyes that fluttered away then fixed upon him like homing missiles, seductive. “Wife, huh? Is that an actual proposal?” Then he settled back down, curled in tight, talked some more into the Doctor's neck, and ground down into him hard enough that they both knew Michael didn't need any sonic screwdriver of his own. “Because if it is, then we should definitely do something about consummating the nuptials. What do you say?”

The Doctor was flushed, there wasn't much left in the way of struggles or protest. Michael had his legs – still fully clad, sadly – nicely splayed for access. And with a faint iridescent flush on his cheeks, he looked up through lashes – oh, flirty – to say, “Well, you do already know my name. My _real_ name, thanks to that psychotic pub-crawl through the swamps of Venus. On Gallifrey that would make us halfway to engaged already.”

Which was good enough for Michael, and it was totally a go for an enthusiastic dive for the Doctor's tonsils, if only he wasn't held back again, and rather unceremoniously, by a large hand splayed over his face. But the Doctor's sweet, laddy, deceptively innocent face was only questing, questioning, now, not protesting. “Are you sure? Are you sure about this? If there's the least chance that it's actually Amore and the Amoreans that are working their diabolical black magic on you – curse their blue furry little pygmy hides, every last phallus-worshipping blasted one of 'em – then we should stop, we should, we should reflect, we should consider – ”

And Michael grabbed the hand off his face, doing its best impersonation of an Aliens facehugger – bad enough when they'd met the real-life versions on that planet with the deserted base. Michael was still having the odd nightmare. Someone to cuddle with would go a long way to sorting that out, though.

The real raw hesitation on the Doctor's face – so different from the careful inattention, the withdrawing glances that he was used to, the stubborn incomprehension meeting his none-too-subtle invitations – especially the hinty ones about the sauna quadrant big enough for two on the dual-dimensional level – made him temper the mockery, snoggery, grab and roll he'd been instinctively about to leap into. He softened. He, Michael Fassbender, idol and role-model to snatch-hunters in galaxies distant and yet unknown.

A hand to the Doctor's cheek might have been mistaken by a non-existent third observer for a mushy and sentimental gesture, and... and, well, fuck it. The kiss to the Doctor's really stellar and perfectly freckle-decorated nose-tip was positively chaste and courtly, and that was a fucking first. Also a long-planned tribute to a beautiful bit of biological design, a gold star for Darwin. “I'm sure,” he said, quite quiet and serious. “I've been sure since the first – ” And there honesty stopped him, because solemnly romantic avowals were one thing, but playing fast and loose with established relationship history was another. What would they tell the kids? Got to get the facts straight. “Well, strictly speaking, I've been sure since I woke up on the barcalounger inside the Tardis control room, with a mother of a hangover headache and you fussing about like a mother hen, making me drink Lemsip and swallow that disgusting seaweed and tentacle concoction from your horned naturopath guy. Who I still think has an unfair advantage when it comes to the natural aphrodisiacs. But.”

His eyes roamed the Doctor's wide-eyed, wondering face, and seemed unaware of the slight, tender half-smile that crept over his own. “I don't actually remember one hot femtosecond of the night before, so I'll have to take that on trust. But I'd assume that – legendary though that night was, and little as I forgive Ralfie for _hilariously_ spiking my drink and egging me on with karaoke Taylor Swift – I wasn't quite slaughtered enough not to recognise a Tardis. A Police Box where it wasn't supposed to be, and it's not as if you even usually see that any more. I probably thought it was Chewy popping back to say _hiya_ and join the tour of all outlying boroughs, night-life, parks and municipal services. Was I too much of a pain in the arse when I stumbled in and made myself at home?”

He grinned cheekily down, and the Doctor touched his face, one stray overgrown wave. Home barbering in the absence of Michael's favourite Hollywood hair-hacker was never quite the same, but overgrown and gingerer looked good on Michael. “Well, the 4-Der is never going to recover from you mistaking it for a urinal. Tardy still hasn't forgiven you that bit – the little gadgets she prints out keep sending her three steps forward when she wants one step back. God, you were rat-arsed. But you were very sweet and polite and gregarious, with it. And I was a little bit star-struck.”

Michael hooted with laughter. “I still can't believe you knew who the hell I was. I mean, Chewy did, straight off – beckoned me out of a line-up for a casting call, I thought he was an assistant to the director till he swanned over and whisked me off for a look at the stars, checking an alien invasion along the way. Said he'd better keep me out of trouble and keep me _pure,_ till you came along. In those boots, I don't know what kind of trouble he thought he was keeping me out of that he couldn't find bigger mischief than, though... Anyhow, it was a long while before I was famous. Then when our adventures were done, he dropped me off in the Old Kent Road and waved me off, said, 'So long, sonny, take good care, don't tell the little Scottish guy about Amore 'cause I value my balls even if they spoil the line of my skirt.” That was it, bye-bye blue box and bye-bye battling aliens, until one night, a hell of a bender, enough years on that I'd almost forgotten about it all.”

“You and him, though. On Amore,” the Doctor said. Michael found his shirt gripped, double-handed, and himself pulled down for a nose-to-nose meaningful look.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, laughing. “God, you are _so_ jealous. How did you survive me bringing back the green twins with the three boobs between 'em?”

The Doctor primmed up his mouth. “Ear mufflers. And I stuck a German art film on in the screen room, loud. Might have downed half a bottle of the Pernod in my cocoa.”

Michael's face softened, and he grazed a trailing kiss over the angle of the Doctor's jaw. “You didn't need to be. I only invited 'em back to make you jealous. If I'd known how well it worked – or worked at all, considering you had your specs askew, your cardigan buttoned to the neck and barely acknowledged us when you were finishing the crossword, it seemed like you hardly noticed – I'd have invited you to join us and accidentally knocked 'em out of the elevated ceiling bed, so we could concentrate on each other. But. You. Jealous, jealous, jealous.” He gave an indrawn whistle, shaking his head. And clearly revelling in it.

Which got him pinched and nipped on the lip, and he could feel the burning flush of the face that the Doctor pressed into his neck, squirming. It made him gentler. “You don't need to be,” he said, softly, tracing a hand down rib bones under too much manly flannel. “It happened, it was admittedly historic and awe-inspiring” - and that merited a slap that stung - “BUT it was strictly a one-planet, one night thing. One artificially–induced mass orgy with added stiletto heels and sequins and little blue happy aliens throwing leis and lucky coins and singing 'All About The Bass' when Lola started squealing. As well as totally, signed in triplicate consensual. We went planet-side with full intel and our eyes open, everybody knew what might happen. But,” he added, “we knocked it on the head, after that night, off to other planets and other pubs. Chewy reckoned it was better: that I should wait for romance, the missing beat of the heart, the real thing. True love. You.”

That was their bodies relaxed together, all along the lines of 'em, up and down. Faces rubbing together and long exhales. “Yeah? That what he said?” the Doctor asked, and got a vague preoccupied nod in response as Michael fiddled with the bit of his hair that always fell in his eyes and made his lashes tickle. Seemed like it was enough: he was galvanized with initiative, and took Michael by surprise, tipping him over and rolling on top to capture the hands that had been capturing his own.

One long, proper kiss later, and the Doctor was well pleased with the thorough moaning soft-eyed abandon he'd managed to induce. Temporary capture in the pleasure-marshes of the pirate-planet peninsula with the madam of the local brothel was, in retrospect, well worth the training and bondage practice, for the skills he'd picked up along the way. And while he had the advantage – and after months, months of repression, self-denial and adherence to a Code that could barely stand up against the flagrant provocations of a Companion who regularly came down, up or sideways to breakfast bare-chested, bed-headed, beautiful and yawning and stealing the milk – it seemed a pity not to take advantage of it.

Not a man of war, the Doctor: but he'd hung out with Sun Tzu in a military era just the same, and learned a thing or two about disarming your opponents. Know your enemy: perhaps he hadn't meant it in the biblical sense, but just the same. He was just peppering little kisses over Michael's throat and letting his hand steal down to explore if the two-dick hypothesis that Michael had been speculating about applied to the odd biological sport amongst humans – and maybe if volume equated to quantity, the eyefuls he'd not once admitted to himself he was angling for prior to now might suggest some substance to the urban myth.

But. He got his hands slapped, and trapped, and stopped, wrists captured in Michael's hands, narrower than his own but as strong. Then it was him, straddled over Michael where he lay flat out and looking up at the Doc, with his hands almost down those loose-waisted pants, but copped before getting to the nub of the business, damn it! “Really?” the Doctor said. “I've been beating you off – you might say – while you tried to get inside my pants, shirt, socks and probably hearing-aid. All this time, since you decided to invite trouble by hauling open the doors and hailing the good perverts of Amore. And now you're getting prissy? What do you want, an engagement ring?”

Michael quirked a smile. “Just making sure you don't have any more consent issues. You sure you want this? It's not the little blue men of Amore and their little blue sun getting to _you_?” He hesitated. “You want me?”

The Doctor bent down – wrists still painfully tight – and growled, wordless in his ear. That seemed to take care of that issue. But yet, he wasn't released. Michael only shook his wrists a little. “And you're not worried about permission any more?”

“Should I be?” the Doctor asked. Over one eyelid, breathing it. Then the other.

Michael's face was stiller, now, no mockery in it. “No. This isn't Amore. Believe me, after last time, I can tell the difference. I want this. I've always wanted this. Although it's a little strange, to have someone – Chewy – a different you – tell me back when I was still wet behind the ears, about how we'd better stay hands off because there was this _earlier _version of himself that I'd be in love with, in the future.”__

“Oh, welcome to my world,” the Doctor sighed, interjected, suddenly dejected. Then alerted, when he replayed that upon his inner ear.

“I mean,” Michael whispered – because they were that close - “I assumed he was nuts. But he _was_ a Timelord. And he did have a Tardis. Then I was out on the lash around half of Dalston and upper Hackney, ten years later, after I'd made a few films and chalked up past history to a psychotic break or, I don't know, alien abduction syndrome. I thought, even if it's true, even if I really did travel in time and battle googly-eyed monsters and hang out in the baths with the ancient Romans, swapping dirty jokes with Cicero... the stuff about the previous regeneration, about predestined love and fixed points and 'meant to be', it doesn't mean that _that_ isn't all bullshit.”

Oh, this was so much more... than anything the Doctor was expecting. It was so much more. He put his hand, to Michael's chest, and felt that singular heartbeat, single and unique. Michael's hand covered his.

“And then,” Michael said, deceptively tranquil, “I caned it too hard with Ralf Little – who is a beast, a _beast_ , don't let anyone tell you different – and woke up in the control room. And thought, aye-aye, _this_ looks familiar. Hallo, old Bess. And a Scottish voice asked from behind me if I preferred tea, or if Lucozade might be a better bet. I turned around.”

“Cursing and swearing,” the Doctor remembered. “Your head...”

“My head,” Michael agreed. “It was you.”

“You'd never seen me before,” the Doctor protested. “Not _this_ me, at any rate.”

“I'd heard enough, from Chewy. You were unmistakable, from the description,” Michael said, still tranquil. And watching him, still and careful. “And anyway, we were in a fucking Tardis. The options were limited. It was you, all right. Thirteen. He said – Chewy,” he went on carefully, “that I'd know you when I saw you. Also that it was gonna be pretty much a _coup de foudre_ , and that I'd be a goner before I so much as tried to break free from the bonds of love. Bit of a poet, that one.”

Oh. Be still, both the Doctor's hearts, then. “And?” he asked, slightly dizzy round the cerebellar region. You'da thought a Cyberman'd been having at it at his grey matter with a circular saw from the sensation.

“Well,” Michael said – and pulled him that inch or two in, for a quick kiss that was the more heart-pitter-pattering in its brief unemphatic casualness - “as you'd know if you met her – or when you are her – Lola is never wrong.” And the Doctor contracted his brows at that, and was about to ask, but Michael continued, “So that was that. And, apart from hangover recovery, I assumed we were all set for the romance of the century – many centuries – and happy threesomes with your missus whenever we happened to bump into her in time and space. But,” he said, doing unhappy wiggly things with his own eyebrows, “Chewy had definitely implied that it was a two-way and mutual thing. The whole mushy feelings issue. Except, in practice, you seemed quite keen to keep me at arm's length and treat me more like a ruddy intern or apprentice. Strictly hands-off, politely oblivious to innuendo and discouraging any kind of fraternization with the troops. After a couple of weeks of the no-touch treatment I was thinking he'd just made a mistake. Some problem with transfer of memory between regenerations, maybe? Anyway. I didn't give up, but I figured... play the long game. So I played the good little Companion. Did a lot of quiet pining in the slumber room. Loong lonely wistful hours, fantasizing about taking my glasses off and you saying, “Why, Miss Fassbender, but you're beautiful!” Loooong, loooonely....”

“Lonely my arse,” the Doctor said to that, severely. “I seem to remember two _companions_ keeping you company in the galaxy two doors down from the sixth dimension. _Twins._ And an LBTQ college netball team on planet B84*+*, not to mention the hot concierge at that place we stayed while we were sorting out that tricky business with King Edward...” Michael was giggling into his shoulder, by that point. Reprehensible, honestly. But giggles transformed into light, light kisses, and the Doctor softened, at that. Well, softened most places. “The Code. The _Code_ , you know. Besides, I just assumed you flirted like that with everybody. I mean, film-star... all your flicks in the screen-room... your, er, reputation...”

“You thought I flirted in the _take me now fucking hell what do I have to do to get it through your head_ style with absolutely everyone,” Michael said, and it would have been flatly, if it hadn't been so muffled, what with current activities. Current activities were making the Doctor giggle, until Michael managed to disengage for a moment – breathless – and smooshed up against the Doctor's cheek, a shamelessly affectionate and barely sexual buss that wasn't at all trying to hide love in lust.

“How about you?” he breathed, soft. “Is this just Amore? Are you sure? Or are you down with this?” he asked, cupping the Doctor's arse where he'd finally managed to get those style-free sand-tone chinos half-way off of him. “And this,” he asked, rucking the appalling Tommy Hilfiger checks off his back. “And...”

Well, you don't need to know.

“Permission?” the Doctor mumbled, hazy with a kind of brain-fog that wasn't Amore-induced. Michael-induced, maybe. “You've got all the permission you need. I give you all kinds of permission, here. It's a good thing you know my name already – you should, what with all your illicit usage of it. In fact... in fact, bitch...”

Michael's nipples were being very distracting, and so Michael, half-coherently, finished the thought for him. “Say my name?” he guessed.

There was a long, busy, fruitfully occupied minute or so before he got an answer, and it didn't do anything for his coherence in response. But it did finally, ahem, come. “Scream it,” the Doctor mumbled.

“James,” Michael whispered. (But he was screaming it later, all right. All night.)

xxx

Pillow-talk is a bitch when you're trying to recover from a consummation that's been six months in the brewin'. On Amore. Michael popped one eye open when, after a long and comfortable doze in each other's arms, the Doctor livened up a bit, rejuvenated a few oxytocin-stunned brain-cells and began happily chuntering about... God. The local cuisine on Amore, largely centred around quite unnecessary aphrodisiacs, and whether they should order in or give the locals a thrill and go do a bit of glad-handing. Give it the old royal wave, get admiringly and intrusively felt-up everywhere they went. (Michael knew the drill. He still had the bruises from the first time.)

Oh, and the missus.

“...and I quite frequently bump into her in the old Dalek stomping grounds, round about the Crimpleneaceous era, so if we're going to go see the Face of Bo then there's a good chance we'll wind up sharing a tavern room for the weekend, which would be handy re: splitting the bills because those Bo innkeepers absolutely gouge for the full-catered option and you have no idea of their resilience to psychic paper, I think it's because they haven't got an awful lot of psyche to begin with, but...”

Getting leaped on and rolled over, smothered with random smooches and a proper kiss, that stemmed the flow a bit, sufficiently. And Michael had to laugh at the cheeky look on his face, realising he'd been taken, deliberately provoked into an amorous assault. He settled with his chin propped on one hand, looking down at a long-pursued prey, and if they just looked at each other a moment, well...

Nice not to have to disguise it. But conscious of perhaps tending to the gooey-eyed and devoted end of the manly-emotion spectrum, Michael cleared his throat self-consciously. “So, your missus. River,” he added, just to make it clear. Christ, it wasn't as if the odd spare spouse floating around the space-time continuum would exactly stretch credulity at this point. “Is she going to be after my hide? Or any other parts of my anatomy? Should I hide in the broom-closet if we bump into her, or is she cool with extra-curricular activities when she's not around?” He waggled his eyebrows – to facilitate communication and comprehension levels, you know – but it didn't appear to be working. The Doctor – James, James, oh, definitely, James _now_ – was still staring at him, slack-jawed.

Although he did find speech after a charged and awkward moment. At least when Michael sighed and poked him with the screwdriver. “Really?” he said, and it was as squeaky as that Scottish burr could ever get. “Really?” Michael looked at him, gave it a bit of the smouldering incomprehension that went down so well with the little senoritas on Sangria, planet of the Pissed – and Jeremy Clarkson, the gamin little slut – and got more of an interrogation. “You actually thought... you assumed it was perfectly possible that I might be playing away without permission? Without River's permission? And... God Almighty... you went along with it anyway?”

Michael scratched his head, and looked as Stan-Laurel innocent as he could manage. “Well. I possibly didn't think it through as clearly as that. But I wasn't going to ask any awkward questions that might have led to you having second thoughts, that was for sure. Not after waiting six months for the vibe to be right to pounce and have my evil way and...” Oh, it seemed like exactly the moment to be leaning in for a kiss that would obviate any need for further awkward discussions. But apparently not, not if he was handed off with some force and stared at like he had an extra head. (Again. That return trip to the clone-goo manufacturers had really been a mistake, and very tricky to fix with the local constabulary. The severed head of one's twin can be so difficult to explain.)

“Well.” James cleared his throat, let his eyebrows roam around for a moment or two, and adjusted. “Well... alarming moral flexibility aside, I can make allowances for the fact that you haven't actually met River yet. And when you do, you'll understand. But in the meantime... No, I am _not_ currently operating outwith the bounds of my marital agreement and understanding with a very feisty – Christ, not sure that really covers it – quasi-timelord missus. Thank God. Because she'd have my head, otherwise.”

“What?” Michael queried. “Not when we...?”

“Nope.”

“How about when we...?”

“Not that, either.”

Considering they had no audience, it wasn't really necessary for Michael to lean and whisper the next bit, about the bedposts and the Cyberman butler in James' ear. But he did it anyway, and positively cooked off the blush it got him. “No. You fiend. Not even _that_.”

“Crikey. You have a very understanding missus.”

“You don't know the half of it.” And a very smug smile creased its way across James' broad, flushed, handsome face, deservedly langorous with satiety and loved-up bliss. Michael got his head yanked down for that kiss after all, thorough and tender and just a little bit carnivorous, before he was pushed back again, to a speculative eyeing from the Timelord who'd loved him. Several times. “And you don't know what you're in for. My wife is a very broad-minded woman, sonny. Hence us, here and now. Very broad-minded. Very, very, veeeeerrry....”

“Yeah, I getcha,” Michael interrupted, grin indulgent, effulgent. “Unshockable.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” James agreed, a reminiscent look in his eyes that suggested he was busy reviewing some pleasant memories. Then was pulled up short. “Also a very acquisitive one.” He gave Michael a meaning look. “You just wait till she gets a good look at you. That'll be it. That'll be _it_ ,” he said, with deep emphasis.

“It'll be what?” Michael asked. He asked it in the manner of someone saying _coochachooo who'sthesweetest_ to an especially cute kitten. But he did ask it.

“That'll be it for your terrestrial career as a cinematic love-god and havoc-causer across continents and film-sets,” James said, earnestly. “Me, I have compunction, I have ethical concerns, I take the terrestrial daily obligations and concerns and mundane habits of the human race seriously. I put my Companions back where I _found_ 'em, when they want to go. River? When River – when my darling wife gets a load of _you_ , Michael Fassbender, you can say good bye to casting calls and Hollywood productions. You can say hello to being a pampered pet and love-slave, except when she takes a job on. For which she'll probably give you some intensive cross-planetary firearms training with the rest of her little cadre of militia, outlaws and renegades, and set you down in the middle of a battlefield after telling you to mind your manners, don't upset the locals and shoot anyone who looks at you funny. She has an interesting set of... well, not ethical principles, as such. More ethical flexibilities. She will also drive you crazy hinting at stuff from your future and then denying you concrete information.” The Doctor looked to be considering his own little tirade, a bit. “You know, for the daughter of two of my oldest friends – and my wife – she's an appalling woman. And I speak as one who loves her dearly.”

Michael was clearly pondering this prospect. His eyes were faraway and musing. He should, by rights, have looked a lot more alarmed than he actually did. “Doesn't sound all that bad, to be honest,” he admitted. “I take it you'd be along for the ride? I'd be the, uh, pampered-love-slave-cum-mercenary-in-training to the both of you, right?”

And James looked up at him. All the content of his pretty face was about foreboding. Foreboding, and quite a lot of wistful, enchanted tenderness. “Oh God,” he said. “That wasn't supposed to be an incentive, you know. It wasn't supposed to be a _list of coming attractions_.”

Michael was clearly still musing over it as such, though, and the dreaming, pleased expression on his face simply had to be eradicated in one way or another. He leaned heavily on Michael's chest, where he was stretched out and relaxed on antique sheets that had taken a bit of a beating. The Doctor said, “I love you. Moving on swiftly to more important matters, we need to discuss the issue of genetic inheritance in the Gallifreyan triple-helix hexaploid chromosome, given cross-breeding with human strains. It may be a bit of an issue but – ”

Yeah, the Doctor had regained his full attention. Judging by the way his back hit the creaking floorboards when Michael rolled him off the bed, so that they were all bundled up naked and laughing in the sheets with Michael giving him the full benefit of combined cuddle/bearhug mauling. “Never mind with the genetics, Dr Science,” Michael said, a hand over his mouth. “I didn't miss the first bit, you know. A declaration and talking about babies, I count that as practically a proposal.” And the speculative light in his eyes, a switch being flicked, told James that he heard his own words and they'd set something off. “You can have more than one spouse, right? You seem a pretty polyamorous lot, given you all contain multitudes to begin with.”

And maybe there was a sceptical twist to the Doctor's face in response. Michael got serious anyhow. Half-wrapped in sheets, half-naked, he got on one knee, tugging the Doctor's hand to join his, where he lay still huddled and gazing up at Michael. “Will you?” he said. “We could get the Amoreans to perform the ceremony, after all,” he pointed out. “After all, all of this is their fault in the first place. And,” he said, carefully, “I have been waiting for six months to say that this is it, this is where it happens for me, this is the you that's the you for me, don't you recognise me, don't you know me, don't you feel the same? Longer than that, really. I wasn't even out of my teens when I was last _dancing with the stars_ with Chewy and Lola. I've known about you for so long. I've just been waiting for you, that's all.” He kissed James' hand, light, teasing, so light there was no tease about it but a very firm and pointed enquiry. “Doctor,” he said. “Timelord. _James._ Amorean, Gallifreyan sex-god of the little blue box. Will you marry me?”

James thought about it. He thought about how very amused River would be, his space-pirate wife, she would chew his _ear_ off with amusement. (Before consfiscating Michael as contraband and booty for a night or two at least.) He thought about how he'd not had the advance warning that Michael had had, but for all that he'd known too, that first morning with a terran film-star out for the count on his couch, snoring and with a blood alcohol count that counted as pickled. Then opening his eyes to the Doctor's proffered mug of tea, so that James dismayingly found himself thinking, “No, no, not another. Haven't I got enough on my hands with River?”

Two hearts, though. Two hearts, two loves, maybe he had the capacity after all. Even if they sent him batty. (Er.)

He hadn't the voice to reply, only opened his mouth and croaked a bit. And he definitely wasn't crying. Not at all.

That seemed to be enough for Michael, though, who wrapped him up in his arms and took the emotional temp. down a notch, whispering about how he was expecting a really nice rock, because Doctors were totally over-paid and especially multi-purpose swiss army knife GP locums like the Doc. James laughed, and choked a bit, and his eyes were squeezed shut, because. Not crying. Breathing a bit carefully, that was all. He was definitely too old, experienced, multiply-regenerated and blasé for this. At least in theory.

“A fabulous rock,” Michael added, firmly. But the Doctor knew full well, from the gentleness of the fingertips on his face, suddenly wet, just how completely he was busted.

“Okay, okay,” he wheezed out. “Maybe we should pick up a pregnancy test at the same time. Be on the safe side.”

“Har har,” Michael said comfortably, hoisting him up and shuffling himself up, so they were closer to cuddling than straddling suggestively any more. “You funny.”

“...”

“Aren't you,” Michael added.

“...”

“Aren't you?”

“...”

“Okay, this isn't funny, Doc. Just to have it out there and clearly established, you're not suggesting that...”

“What did you think I meant?” The Doctor was honestly confused. He was sure this had come up as a discussion point at some point in the past six months.

Fairly sure. “By the whole genetic interspecies Gallifreyan breeding womb-induction compatibility issue?”

Well, Michael didn't faint. There was that.

“Ten got Mickey preggers on Amore, didn't you know?” the Doctor added. It might not have been the most tactful thing he'd ever said. At some point, in some era, during some regeneration, he was going to have to take some seminars on psychology and relationship transactional assessments. The touchy feely shite about other people's delicate sensibilities, all that. “Noel Clarke was most annoyed, it buggered up filming for the Attack The Block threequel completely,” he added.

Maybe Michael was a bit woozy, but it made it all the more admirable, how quickly he recovered. “Shotgun wedding, then?” he suggested calmly. “You might want to get me up that aisle before the baby bump is showing. Make an honest man outta me.”

“I make you no promises on that score,” James said softly, and kissed him into some excuse for faintness. “Only to love and cherish forever. Several aeons at least.”

xxx

The wedding was legendary. Amore had never seen anything like it. Everyone was sore for weeks afterwards, _weeks_.

“OH PRAISE THE GOOD DOCTOR HE HAS FILLED THE PRETTY COMPANION WITH HIS SEED! THERE WILL BE FRUITFULNESS AND BABIES FOR THE LOVE-GODS OF AMORE! WE PREDICT A MULTIPLE BIRTH! POSSIBLY SEXTUPLETS! ALL HAIL THE VIRILITY OF THE THIRTEENTH DOCTOR, LET HIM LOOK AT YOU AND BANG YOU'RE UP THE DUFF!”

Missy made a _lovely_ best man, and even put villainy aside for at least an hour or two, with only perfunctory attempts to shag the bride mid-ceremony. (She was restrained by the Cyberman chief bridesmaid.)

Etsy ran out of the monkey hats, in the end, as it turned out. Most attendees at the christening made do with bringing a bottle and a sex-aid each.

It was just that kind of a wedding.


End file.
